When an ice cream cone is to be served by a vendor to a customer, by filling the ice cream cone with the customer's choice of ice cream or other frozen confections, the normal procedure is for the vendor to remove the cone from the shipping container in which the vendor received it and serve it to the customer either as is or with a piece of paper or napkin wrapped around the cone. In either case, the cone is subject to some direct contact by the vendor's personnel prior to serving which is, at best, marginally sanitary. Efforts in the industry have been made to alleviate this condition by having the vendor try to apply some form of protective wrap before taking the cone from the shipping box. This proves to be cumbersome, time-consuming and impractical, however, from the vendor's standpoint and accordingly, is not universally practiced.
Other attempts to apply wraps to baked ice cream cones at the point of manufacture, prior to packing the cone in the shipping box or carton, resulted in the wraps coming loose during shipping or slipping off of the cone when the vendor attempted to dispense the cone from the package, therefore, returning the vendor to the previous condition, namely, providing a cumbersome, time-consuming and impractical effort to render the vending of ice cream cones more sanitary.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a combination ice cream cone-in-jacket in which the jacket is sufficiently affixed to the cone such that the vendor will find it practical to leave the jacket on the cone during the vending operation and yet which will permit the consumer to readily separate the jacket from the cone at the point of purchase.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a new and novel method for applying a jacket to a baked ice cream cone such that the jacket will adhere to the cone sufficiently during packing, shipping and dispensing to preclude its accidental removal and yet which will be readily separable from the cone if such is intended by a consumer.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for placing a jacket on a cone in such a manner as to preclude its accidental removal therefrom.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more fully apparent with reference to the following specification and drawings which relate to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.